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Pronation / supination

Was browsing youku and came across some xiong guobao videos, and in one of the videos he was teaching his students to supinate their forearms in the preparation and then pronating due to rotation of the core as they strike the shuttle.

I've NEVER seen it taught this way in badminton (not in my personal experience, although I've only had about 2 months worth of lessons. But neither CWH, ZJH LJB or even PR does it like that on any of the videos I've scoured online) . I have however came across similar teachings in another sport (one that chases a white ball around for 5 miles trying to put that ball into an insanely small hole given how big the playing "court" is ). It makes sense to me in the context of that other sport (and I do find a lot of kinematic sequence similarities between the two sport) but I'm just wondering if there are methods to XGB's madness.

It seems to me if I was going for a huge smash, this might add some extra juice to it because you really feel that snap cause by the rotation / pronation at the top of the stroke, but man it looks weird as well.

^^ Just as in the split step, muscle pre loading helps make the upcoming muscle contraction more explosive and powerful. However there is only a short time frame of a tenth of a second when this occurs, so if it's done too early the effect is wasted.

Yes, what visor said. As someone else knew what I was getting at, I can't have been too far off the mark

I mean that making a small counter movement just prior to the movement you actually want to do increases explosiveness.

That is the whole premise behind the split step - first you 'sit', then you stretch. The same philosophy applied to the overhead shot means that just prior to starting your forearm pronation you should supinate. If you are already fully supinated a la guobao, then this is impossible.

Think of this scenario: You have to jump as high as possible from a standing position. Do you

I'm not sure what caused you to ask that question. It entirely depends on your wrist/forearm preparation.

if your grip is correct when you lead with the elbow the racket will make its back-swing and the strings will face sideways. then when when you start swinging forward your forearm pronates so the strings face the shuttle.

I don't think you consciously have to think about pronation. In the video "Fu Hai Feng Teaches you how to Smash" he didn't pronate his forearm when he showed us the four steps in slow motion. In fact he said a lot of players injure themselves trying to too hard to pronate their forearm. However, when he actually did a smash you saw in slow motion that pronation still happened

if your grip is correct when you lead with the elbow the racket will make its back-swing and the strings will face sideways.normally, yes, but not necessarily. It's possible to start in a fully pronated position

I don't think you consciously have to think about pronation.This opinion doesn't seem to address anything previously discussed in the thread, hence my confusion.

And of course you will have to consciously think about it *at some point*. It is not an automatic movement and it must be learnt. Once it is embedded into muscle memory then you may not think about, but it is by no means inherently automatic.

Was browsing youku and came across some xiong guobao videos, and in one of the videos he was teaching his students to supinate their forearms in the preparation and then pronating due to rotation of the core as they strike the shuttle.

I've NEVER seen it taught this way in badminton

Hi there, just thought I would give some thoughts on this comment. Firstly, I have not seen it taught exactly like it is taught in this video, and I am not sure I entirely like it. However, its his teaching method, and it probably works given the fact that he was part of the strongest set of Chinese players ever (with yang yang and the great ZJH).

I would say that getting students to supinate before they pronate is good preparation. However, you are correct it is not often taught explicitly in other videos. CWH does show it in his video, but keeps the instruction very simple (and doesn't talk about it). Peter Rasmussen has more instructional videos that you have to buy, and in these videos he shows supination and pronation, but just calls it "rotation of the wrist" and does not place great emphasis on it - note that is not to say he makes it seem unimportant, but he doesn't mention it as being any more important than the rest of the technique. ZJH doesn't talk about it in his lessons, but he surely shows it in his demonstrations - just like Fu Haifeng does in his instruction. LJB does not talk about pronation or supination (except once in one video that I can't remember much about) and again he focuses on "broader" concepts rather than specifics.

With regard to pronating as a result of core (body) rotation, that is also correct. The pronation for a full power smash will happen as the last part of a kinetic chain - you leg pushes powerfully upwards, the hips rotate forwards, the upper body rotates along with the racket elbow, the arm extends and the arm pronates as the last part of the chain.

From what you have said and from what I have seen in that video, I believe all the instruction is correct, but you are right in saying it looks a lot different to the way that the others coach it - most of them do not mention the forearm rotation specifically as far as I am aware, but trust that if you do all the other things correctly and naturally, you will achieve that anyway if you have the correct grip and correct principles.